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A Lesson Learned – More About Lessons

Each of us has a story to tell. Each of us has endured hardships, experienced wonderful moments, and has fallen down to then get up. It is the power of the human spirit, or is there more? I believe there is more, but for now I’d like to share some of what I’ve learned that may help you navigate your life with more joy.

I grew up in Denmark and The Netherlands, even though I was born in New York. I learned how to read and write English as a ten year old, and it wasn’t easy. During a good part of my childhood, I felt like an outsider because no matter where we lived (we had moved nine or ten times by the time I was 12), I was the new kid or the foreign kid. Suffice it to say, I always felt I was on the outside looking in.

Without going into detail about what happened during those years and later, what I have realized is that each and every experience I had, whether it was pleasant or seemingly devastating at the time, allowed me to grow into the person I am today. I am still growing, still learning, and I am quite happy with who I am. Most of us realize that we learn from the experiences of life, but do we use that knowledge? I believe the most powerful lesson of all is to believe, especially when in the midst of what seems like something devastating, that what we are experiencing is actually a blessing, a gift. If you believed that to be true, how might that change your life?

When we change the way we look at our world, then the way we experience our world changes. If everything that happened to you were, somehow, for your benefit, would you respond differently to any given situation? When we experience an unpleasant event, we might feel hurt or despair. We tend to not think about how wonderful we’ll feel and how much we will have learned once the event is over. If, on the other hand, we acknowledge the experience and our emotions and then focus on how much we will have learned, how much stronger we will be, and how much better our lives will be once we have moved past that event, then we can feel hopeful, perhaps even excited about what is to come.

Sometimes we are reminded and tested, and it may not be easy or comfortable. It may even be hard and evoke painful emotions. The blessing is, that when we are able to be true to who we really are and to get to the other side of it with our most loving intentions intact, we can be proud of lessons learned. What comes next is the realization that there is nothing we cannot manifest. Your wildest dreams are but a few winks away. How cool is that? ❤